As you've likely heard, we don't have any live-action contests to cover at LetsGoPeay.com right now. What we do have is free time; oodles and oodles of free time. Enough free time to swap oodles of emails with various people who would know to create a snapshot of the 10 best players in Austin Peay football history. Our penultimate entry is the OG of Austin Peay ballcarriers and the man who made the number 30 his own.

If you've been following along on our little countdown, you've noticed a preponderance of players whose either primary or secondary function was that of running back. We've had some pretty good ballcarriers, in our day.

John Ogles was the original, the bar everyone else got to be measured against. That's why his uniform number is retired and why, more than 50 years after his last carry, his name carries such weight within the program.

What Ogles did, for his era, is not something that was often done. In the infancy of the Ohio Valley Conference, his back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons on the ground were indispensable portions of the best three-year stretch in program history, with the Govs going 22-6-1 during that stretch. He's one of three players in Austin Peay history with multiple 1,000-yard seasons on the ground—the difference is, he was doing it 40 years before it became chic, often in nine or 10 games instead of 11 or 12. And unlike many of his contemporaries, he did it in an era when everything was grind-it-out-at-the-line, smashmouth football–in 1965, Ogles 1,017 yards was nearly 200 yards more than Austin Peay's leading passer.

When his playing days were done, Ogles wasn't just accorded a spot in the Hall of Fame—his number 30 was retired, one of two football numbers to be bestowed such an honor. As this list can attest, there have been many good football players who have come through Austin Peay. To resonate historically to the point where your number is retired, it takes more than just good numbers. Ogles' name does that; our "committee" (people solicited for their opinions about this) comprised the young and old and plenty of people who have seen a lot of Austin Peay football over the years. Ogles was one of the few players whose feats transcended era. The man earned a lot of respect.